In 1715 the chief burgage owners at Whitchurch were Thomas Vernon, a Tory, who returned himself, and John Wallop, a neighbouring Whig landowner, who returned General Carpenter. On Vernon’s expulsion from the House of Commons in 1721, Wallop, now Lord Lymington, put up his friend John Conduitt, on the understanding that Conduitt should make way for Wallop’s son when the boy came of age. Returned on petition, Conduitt was re-elected with Vernon at the general election of 1722.
At Stockbridge, a notoriously venal borough, elections depended on securing the bailiff, who was the returning officer. In 1715, when two Whigs, Thomas Brodrick and Martin Bladen, were returned, their opponents petitioned on the ground that the bailiff, ‘a known agent’ of the sitting Members, had polled a number of unqualified voters for his clients.CJ, xviii. 35. The petition was not heard. On 6 Feb. 1720 Brodrick wrote:
The chief interest in Southampton was that of the corporation, consisting of the mayor, recorder, sheriff, two bailiffs, and all who had served in those offices. The corporation had the power of creating unlimited new freemen and the returning officers were the mayor and bailiffs. Members returned were usually neighbouring landowners or persons with strong local connexions.
An Admiralty borough, Portsmouth was managed by channelling local patronage through the corporation, who controlled the representation by their power to create freemen. Soon after George I’s accession its governor, Lord North and Grey, an extreme Tory, was informed by his agent there that Sir Charles Wager had come down, caused 59 new freemen to be admitted, and deprived the agent of his receivership of the land tax. Next month Lord North was dismissed.John Mellish to North, 11 Sept.
During this period the electorate of Petersfield was enlarged by the practice of splitting some of the ancient burgages into several separate tenements, which were then conveyed temporarily to friends or agents of the candidates. In the petition proceedings after the by-election in 1727, the petitioner and the sitting Member objected respectively to 23 and 94 split votes out of a total of 299. Similar charges were made by the petitioner in 1734.CJ, xx. 859-61; xxii. 336.
The representation of Lymington was shared by the Powletts, dukes of Bolton, lords lieutenant of Hampshire, with the Burrards, a local family who managed the borough, packing the corporation so successfully that in 1722 Paul Burrard said ‘all the old burgesses now alive (except one) from the year 1686 to 1701, were made by us’. When in 1722 Lord William Powlett attempted to secure the second seat, Paul Burrard successfully objected, pointing out to him:
In 1715 to the Christchurch corporation returned the former Tory Members, Sir Peter Mews, lord of the manor of Christchurch, and William Ettrick, who had represented the borough since the Revolution. On Ettrick’s death in 1716 he was succeeded unopposed by another Tory, Francis Gwyn, who had represented Christchurch in the previous reign. Re-elected with Mews in 1722 but choosing to sit for Wells, Gwynn was succeeded by his son, also a Tory, against Joseph Hinxman, a local Whig landowner.
The right of election at Andover was in the corporation, who allowed John Wallop, Lord Lymington, a neighbouring landowner, to nominate one Member. The other seat was filled by their recorder, William Guidott, till 1727, when Charles Colyear reported to Walpole:
Tewkesbury elections were controlled by the corporation, who usually chose neighbouring landowners, notably the Dowdeswells of Pull Court, who had constantly represented the borough since the Restoration, the Martins of Overbury, who held one seat in every Parliament but one from 1734 to 1807, and Lord Gage of Highmeadow, who sat from 1721 to 1754. Though the corporation prided themselves on being ‘above corruption’, elections were in fact extremely expensive. In 1727 a prospective candidate wrote:
Owing to the size of the electorate there was no single dominant interest at Gloucester, though the Selwyns of Matson, who were said to govern the city through its reservoirs on their property,See SELWYN, John. held one seat almost uninterruptedly from 1727 to 1780. The Whig corporation had some influence through its power of creating freemen and its control of certain charities, but the majority of the population were Tories. All the Members were local men and every general election but one was contested.
